Wordless Wednesday - Sort of...

Our adventure in a VW Bus - circa 1969-1970 - Donna went to Tucson in
this vehicle as a 5 week old

Going Home…

Mike and Allison arrived in Bloomington, Indiana yesterday evening. For me it was a bittersweet feeling. In one sense JoAnn and I wished we could be in Bloomington to greet them into our old home, our old Ward, and to the University. Yet, those times are behind us, we have moved on. It was about this time in 1990 that we arrived in Bloomington to start my new job with Indiana University. We came with 5 children, and the 2 at college eventually found us. It was another adventure and chapter in our lives and in some ways the most profound. We have lived a number of places, but in Bloomington we lived the longest we, as a family, had ever lived and I as an individual, had ever lived. It was a wonderful community. There was much to do and much to learn.


While we never learned to appreciate Indiana’s humidity we absolutely enjoyed the long springs and falls. After 13 years in Iowa we were prepared for milder winters and long springs and falls. The beauty of living in southern Indiana never became commonplace for us. Regardless of the season, there was great beauty to see. The spring flowers, the fall colors, the winter mists, the summer greenness. In each there was a great beauty.
The beauty of the place is one thing, but the people were also wonderful. Our children had life enriching experiences, made lifelong friends, and grew in so many ways. It felt like what home should be, but that was because of family, friends, and church. We lived on the edge of town and often I could walk home from work. It was only about 2.5 miles, not bad at all.

Story County Courthouse in Bloomington, IN

But that’s our story. Mike and Allison are making their own story. For Mike it is a bit about going home, but it is also new. He was a son, now he is a husband. He was a student, now he is a breadwinner. He returns as a family and with a wonderful wife and to a community where he has friends. We are so excited for them. We are nearer the end of our story than the beginning, although with many pages left, and they are at the start of their story.

Classic Monday

Today Mike and Allison leave for their adventure moving from Idaho to Indiana. It seems just like yesterday that we were embarking on the same adventure. Between 1972 to 1977 we lived in Ventura, Ca, Fort Sill, OK, Provo, UT, Manhattan, KS and landing finally in Ames, IA. Most of that time was spent with me receiving a masters and doctorate degree at Brigham Young University and Kansas State University and starting my first academic job at Iowa State University. For us it was quite and adventure, and at times challenging. We didn't have much money and most of the time I worked 2 or 3 jobs.

We started this adventure with 2 children and completed it with 4. In August, 1974 we moved from Provo, UT to Manhattan, KS with JoAnn 8 months pregnant. I can't believe we did that. We drove our Volkswagon bug into the moving truck and packed around it (not a smart thing to do, but what did I know). Within 4 weeks of our arrival in Manhattan Suzanne was born and 13 months later Tim was born, but I'm ahead of myself and that may be for another day.

We borrowed my parent's International Harvester Travelall to tow a small trailer to Ft. Sill, OK where we spent 13 weeks at the Armor Basic Course. It was our first long trip and JoAnn's first living experience outside of California. The photo to the right shows Donna and the quality of car seats in those days. Behind her we had a cot set up and that was where baby Jeni slept while we traveled.

When we got done at Fort Sill we drove back to central California where I dropped off JoAnn and the girls to spend time with our parents while I spent a week at Fort Irwin with my National Guard unit. I then went and picked them up, drove up over to BYU, dropped the kids and JoAnn off and then took the car and trailer to Las Vegas where I dropped it off, then back to central California to pick up my car and back to Wymount Terrace married student housing. You can see the quad and apartment buildings right behind the photo of JoAnn and Jeni. I was done driving for the summer and didn't care if I drove again or not.

That was the start of our great adventure. Good luck Mike and Allison - you too have begun your great adventure and we wish you the best and send all of our love.

PS - If I got any of the facts wrong let me know.

Newbies

If there is anything constant in our family it is change. We figured since we, or I had to be in Salt Lake City, we could just drive on up to Boise and check things out. There is a good reason. Daughter 3 is due any day now with her 5th child - Hattie. And Mike gets married on Friday, October 23.

On Saturday, that's today, his fiance Allison (photo below) is going to the Boise LDS Temple to receive her endowments. If you aren't LDS I will only say this is a very sacred ceremony and prepares them for their marriage the following week, which unlike most we see, includes being sealed for time and eternity. We wanted to be present for today's experience and support her and Mike.

Over the past 15 months JoAnn and I feel like we have been on the road almost constantly on family business. It's not really business, but it is support. It includes 3 new babies, a funeral, 1 marriage, a family reunion in Colorado, Christmas in Des Moines, 2 college graduations (note some of these activities are still in the near future), baby blessings, Aaronic Priesthood ordinations, visits to my Dad and Sisters, and visits by families to Las Vegas. There is one common thread in all of this - family. Our move to Las Vegas was truly a blessing. We are now able to share more of our time with all of our children and grandchildren. That is exciting for us. We enjoy these times and experiences. I feel like I know the roads to Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, and California and the sky-ways to Iowa. They have become common to us.

When we lived in Indiana it was so much more challenging to make these visits. We felt like we missed a lot. Not now and while I know we will slow this pace down, it has been fun.

Gotta Love Spring Travel

I truly have become a Las Vegan. If it isn't sunny, warm, and nice I don't much care to travel. Well in the last week I flew to Salt Lake City and upon arrival I picked up my car for the drive to Provo and the woman at the rental counter says, "We are expecting 5 to 8 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow." My response was, "If that's the case, I won't be back tomorrow." Not that I don't like driving in the snow (I don't), but especially not in Salt Lake City or any other big city. And, I'm just a little out of practice. Not much snow (or rain) in Las Vegas.

Jeni, Craig and the kids came for spring break and I promised to drive Jeni and the kids back to Denver since Craig had to go back to work. As I watched the weather (remember I just dodged a storm in Utah) I noted that Denver was set for a Friday-Saturday snow event (that means .1" to 24" depending on how mother nature feels). So we opted to go through Albuquerque to Denver. Yes, it is a little longer, but the scenery is still new to me and with David & Krissie in Albuquerque it makes for a nice stop.

We got off moderately early (5 am), saw Hoover Dam just as it was getting light. Noted the new bridge is making great progress and then headed south to Kingman, AZ and Interstate 40. Off we were east to Albuquerque and making good time. We stopped for gasoline in Flagstaff, noted the wind was getting brisk (how about just plain hard) and got 17 miles east and hit a standstill. We made 1.2 miles in 2 hours. I could see our "good time" going right out the window. By the time we got to the off ramp - yes the road was closed - we were informed all roads east were closed due to high winds (gusts up to 65 mph). So, we turned around, back to Flagstaff, found a hotel with an indoor pool (lukewarm water and cold indoor space, but still indoors) and after everyone quit shivering we were off for lunch. Back in the room we looked outside and yes, the wind was blowing, the side roads were filling up with trucks (nowhere to go) and then the snow hit. It was horizontal (a good Iowa snow) and whiteout conditions.

It really did look a lot colder and snowy when I looked at it. Photos make a car look like it lost 10 pounds - or more.

By comparison the rest of the trip was uneventful. However, as I was driving east on Saturday through eastern Arizona and western New Mexico I thought more than once about the movie Cars and how much scenery we must be missing. Remember the scene with all the traffic on the interstate. Well, that was us! I decided to save that detour for another trip. After all we will be going to Albuquerque 2 more times this summer - on the way to Denver. Thank goodness I don't have to go to Boise to get to Denver.

We had dinner at a little Mexican restaurant on Saturday evening in east Albuquerque, close to the Air Force base, and it was truly a mom and pop operation. The food was superb. It may have helped that we were all starved, but we did have a great time. I had a photo of Jeni expressing just how HOT the red sauce was, but had to censor it (for fear of my own health).

This shot of Alyssa came as she was being a bit of a teen and not wanting a photo taken. I set my iPhone on the table, propped it up with hot sauce container and shot a series of time lapse photos. This was the point where she asked what I was doing. Of course I told her nothing, but I don't think she believed me.

Now, as I sit in the Denver airport waiting I'm excited to go home and see my lover. I've forgotten what it was like to have kids at home and how little of JoAnn I really got to see.

Letters

Today Grandma and I each received a letter from our 2nd Grandaughter (Alexis) in Idaho. The letters...

"Grandmu

Why are you not calling me (obviously Grandma made a commitment) becus you sed that you wod call me evry 1 week and your not wiy?

Sind back
Love Alexis"

Okay, Grandma feels appropriately chastened and has made a commitment to the calls.

Letter 2 to Grandma:

"Dear Gramu

I love you sow much. But I hop the other letter do's not disupot you gramu!

Love Alexis"

A little repentance on her part. She love Grandma, but wants those phone calls. I suspect they will be coming on a regular basis.

Now Grandpa's letters. There were two buried in the envelope and I didn't find the second one until I saw Grandma had 2 letters.

"Dear Grampu,

I love you. I chang my mind I wont to go to Diny land (Disneyland). I wont to go sown to your how's (house). How is Wisper! (Whisper is the Devil Cat who doesn't like children).

Love
Alexis

Sind Back!"

Letter 2:

"Hi Grampu

I hope your bak fil's beter.

Wind are we going to Disny land?

Love,
Alexis

Sind Back!"

Don't you just love the letters. Like all of our grandchildren she is so sweet. Although I hope her mother reports fully on Alexis's doctor visit yesterday where she tried to slug the nurse when she was getting a shot! I will leave that for Suzanne.

You can see there are some clear expectations on Alexis's part for us to respond. I guess JoAnn and I have some letter writing to do. The work of Grandparent's never ends, but then we don't want it to end.

Adventures in Traveling: Part 2

It seems like just yesterday we were sitting in the Las Vegas airport waiting for our airplane to be deiced and wondering if the previous day’s snowstorm and airport closure was a premonition of what was to come. It was. We flew into wonderful weather, if you recall, leapfrogging our storm so we could experience it twice. During our stay in Iowa we were not disappointed by winter. We experienced snow, fog, rain, ice storm, sunshine (I’m not sure I remember sunshine), windchill down to a -30 F and a January thaw in December when it got to 51 F. Quite the swing. And of course the ice storm had to wait until the day we left. In terms of an ice storm it wasn’t a big one, but it doesn’t take much of an ices storm to mess things up.

So here we are at an airport once again, this time in Des Moines, Iowa waiting or our airplane. We are hopeful the delay will be short. Delay you say? Yes, not only was their an ice storm in Iowa, but frost on the planes in Las Vegas and we all know how efficient deicing is in Las Vegas.

An ice storm is not my favorite kind of storm, but fortunately the airport is functioning and our airplane is coming in from Las Vegas and won’t be on the ground too long - at least we hope. I just took a photo of a United Airlines aircraft with icicles on its wings. I later found out that one of the deicing trucks was broken and folks were waiting for another plane to be deiced before they were going to have their plane deiced. They had been waiting for over 4 hours. I even saw the pilots get up and leave, shaking their heads. Maybe the keystone cop thing is not reserved just for Las Vegas, but Des Moines has their own keystone cops.


At one point while I was in the restroom I heard from the stall next to me at the “little boy’s urinal” a small boy ask his dad, “Why doesn’t if flush?” (They were auto flush urinals).

Dad responds with, “Let’s not worry about flushing, let’s just get your pants up.” [That sounds awfully familiar. The boy was maybe 4.]

Boy, “Dad, I think you broke the toilet, it won’t flush.”

Dad,with just a touch of frustration, “Let’s go.” As they turn to leave the automatic urinal flushes. No response from either of them, Dad was moving too fast.


Home again, home again and how good it feels. Bright sunshine, beautiful red rock hills, our own home, a cat anxious to spend as much time on our lap as she can. It is always good to be gone, but it is also good to be home. We already miss the kids, but know we left a spoiled grandson behind as a reminder. It was a great trip.

Adventures in Traveling

JoAnn and I sit at the Las Vegas airport encountering a most unusual experience: Flight delays due to snow. Yes, for the 2nd time in 3 days Las Vegas had a major snow storm. Major for Las Vegas. In fact, as we learned later, it was the biggest snow storm in recorded history - a whopping 3.5 inches. Wednesday afternoon the airport had to close because of snow. My thought was that the airport doesn’t have deicing equipment. They don’t have much in the term of deicing equipment as we are finding out this morning. More importantly, however, there are no snowplows at the Las Vegas airport. And even if there were, who would know how to drive them. The last time we had snow that closed the airport was 1979.

On the positive side, as we sit looking west towards our home, the Spring Mountains, Red Rock, and Mount Charleston are just beautiful. If we were home we would have driven out into Red Rock today - at least I would have - just to take photos. This is a special event that may not occur again for years.

Hopefully in a short while we will board our aircraft and wing our way to Iowa and that bone-chilling cold.

It wasn’t so short and it was like watching the keystone cops as the airport tried to get their deicing equipment to work. The deicer would fit in my garage - this isn’t Denver! It was a small container and it took 15 to 30 minutes for every aircraft. Then it broke and it was the ONLY one! At one point I counted 7 people around the deicer: 3 supervisors (what do they know?), 2 operators who kept pushing the same button, and 2 hangers-on. In the meantime the airline had a baggage conveyor truck (for getting the baggage into the aircraft) with a driver and a person on the conveyor and every time they get to an airplane the person on the conveyor would walk to the top, take his broom, and push snow off the aircraft between the engine and the aircraft body. I’ve got to tell you, my confidence level was not very high.

After some 60 minutes some guy drove up in a pickup, pulled out two tools, one being a wrench, walked over to the deicer, spent 2 minutes, and had the lift working. Of course it still didn’t go very high. As our aircraft pulled out and we went down the row of remaining aircraft at their gates, it didn’t look like any were going anywhere soon. There was snow on the wings, in the engines, and on the tails. The sun was out and slowly things were melting, but not very fast.

JoAnn noted the patrons were particularly relaxed. Many had spent the night at the airport. They were resigned to “someday” getting out of Las Vegas.

And we were finally off for a beautiful flight from Las Vegas to Des Moines. We are in the air looking down on a mixed white region and by all accounts flying into the storm that blew through Las Vegas on Monday. Well, it is Christmas, it is air travel, and yes, it is an adventure.


The payoff is spending time with our family and our new grandson - Joshua! It was a long day, but what a great ending.

Been there - Saw that or "We beat you Donna"

Okay, what can I say. We are sitting at lunch with our daughter and her husband today when I suggest, "Let's go see the new James Bond movie." Everyone was up for it. I checked my iPhone and found out we had 10 minutes. We drove across Charleston to the Red Rock, got our tickets and watched Quantum of Solace. If you've watched Donna's blog you know she has been touting it for weeks now - but we beat her. Of course as soon as we got in the theater we SMSd her with a "At Quantum of Solace. Eat your heart out!" After the movie we called and she said, "Don't tell me anything!" At 7:10 pm we got a text message saying "I'm third in line for seats." and the part she didn't tell was, it doesn't start of another 90 minutes. No, we are not giving any of it away.